


My Brother Narcissus

by Selena



Category: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF, 18th Century CE RPF
Genre: Brotherly Angst, Dysfunctional Family, M/M, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Sibling Rivalry, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23246449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selena/pseuds/Selena
Summary: In the summer of 1749, Frederick the Great figures out a way to deal with his rebellious younger brother Heinrich. It's been a long time coming.
Relationships: August Wilhelm von Preußen (1722-1758) & Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Francesco Algarotti/Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great, Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802) & Others, Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802)/Marwitz the Page, Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great & Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen (1726-1802), Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf & Friedrich II von Preußen | Frederick the Great
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	My Brother Narcissus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raspberryhunter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspberryhunter/gifts), [mildred_of_midgard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildred_of_midgard/gifts).



> **Author's note** : The story has a slight allusion to an earlier story of mine, [The moon flies face to face with me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23080882), but can be read on its own. 
> 
> **Warnings** : The usual Hohenzollern backstory trauma hailing back to the Friedrich Wilhelm method of child raising.

"What am I going to do with my brother?" he asked, and Fredersdorf, because he was Fredersdorf, did not have to ask "Which one?", despite there being three to choose from. One of Heinrich's many annoying qualities was that he'd made himself somehow essential when he should have been an also-ran; not even the spare to Friedrich's heir, a third brother and a thirteenth child.

"I am ready to advise you on all matters from salaries for castrato singers to the placement of spies at the Austrian envoy's house, Sire", Fredersdorf returned, deadpan, "but in the interest of my continued existence at your side, or just my continued existence, I have it my policy never to comment on any relationship between members of your family." Then he added with the smile that had cut into that whole miserable year at Küstrin like a beam of warming light: "You'll think of something. You always do."

Friedrich considered saying something along the lines of "we're not that terrible", but Fredersdorf was one of the few people he'd never lied to, and he had no intention to start now. Besides, in truth, he would have resented being told how to treat his younger brother, even though he'd just asked for it.

* * *

During the first part of his childhood, he'd been surrounded solely by sisters, and of these sisters, there was only Wilhelmine who truly counted, though Charlotte made him laugh, which was something he always appreciated, and he had some mild fondness to spare for Sophie, Friederike Luise and Ulrike whenever they reminded him of their existence by offering themselves as alternate targets to their father's lectures, or, wonder of wonders, managed to get the King into a good mood. Still, it would never have occurred to him to confide in them, not even when they got older, to play with them, to read and learn with them. There was Wilhelmine, and there was the rest of his family. It was as simple as that.

The arrival of August Wilhelm, ten years after Friedrich's birth, had complicated things somewhat, not least because he ended Friedrich's unique position as his father's only son. Which wasn't a relief, since it didn't mean the King now expected less from his oldest. What it did mean was that little Wilhelm, by his very existence, proved there was, in fact, a way to be a son of the King in Prussia and not end up as that King's enemy. Friedrich and Wilhelmine stared in disbelief while little Wilhelm cheerfully laughed at their father, hugged him, was cuddled and praised by him. It would have been easy to hate Wilhelm for this, except that Wilhelm _was_ an endearing child, quick to offer help, never using their father's love to gloat. After Wilhelm, all of five years, had been earnestly offering his cushion to Friedrich so he could sleep better, because he'd heard their father rant about how his oldest behaving like a French fop who never found his own bed, Friedrich capitulated and decided he loved Wilhelm, too. Besides, he felt sorry for him. Wilhelm wasn't stupid, but his teachers, well aware of how Friedrich's teachers had fared when daring to teach the Crown Prince what every other Prince in Europe would learn, never pressed any scholarship on him beyond some basic mathematics, reading, writing and history of the House of Brandenburg. Instead, they were happy to report to the King how much this second son liked to ride, to run, to exercise, even. If someone didn't take care of his education, Wilhelm would end up knowing little more than a well-off peasant, Friedrich thought, and the sense of superiority and pity helped him conserve his love for his brother even through the spectacle of watching his father praise Wilhelm and never giving him a harsh word while coming up with new insults for Friedrich by the day.

Heinrich was different from the start. Heinrich wasn't a pretty baby. He was tiny, even for a baby, which Friedrich was in a good position to know since he had to carry the blasted infant all through the baptism ceremony and hold it over the basin. Heinrich didn't stop crying once. At some point, Friedrich's exasperation started to turn into impressed awe at the sheer endurance of it, and besides, he had to admit that everyone's embarrassed faces were a blast. Especially the parson's, whose homilies were completely drowned out by little Heinrich's lungs. Friedrich was fourteen then, his father had started to run him ragged on the drill grounds, and he took his amusements where he could find them.

He didn't have much opportunity to think about Heinrich again until years later, when an execution and a year in captivity had allowed him to reassemble himself out of the broken pieces of the Friedrich who'd gotten the man he loved killed into a Friedrich who finally did master the art of satisfying the King his father, at least enough so to be granted a life far from him for most of the year. He'd even won the most dangerous of his father's creatures around, Grumbkow, at least enough to ensure they were mutually useful to each other.

"Some interest in your royal brothers would be sure to find the King's favour", Grumbkow said, and Friedrich, who'd already started to correspond with Wilhelm and felt good about being the one person in Wilhelm's life who could possibly save him from the fate of ending up as an undereducated joke, looked again at the two youngest offsprings his parents had produced. He did not like what he saw. Ferdinand was a child who actually liked to play with bows and arrows, and when he managed to hit Friedrich's favourite greyhound, Friedrich decided that behind that lurking behind the big eyed toddler facade was a bloodthirsty replica of his father.

Heinrich, on the other hand, didn't care to play hunter. Heinrich didn't ask for advice as to which books to read, like Wilhelm did once Friedrich had finally persuaded him that books could be enjoyable when containing other things than bible verses. Because Heinrich actually had discovered the joy of reading on his own, borrowing books from his older sisters, and since he was only the third son, his father wasn't interested enough to find out and be upset, it seemed.

Heinrich at ten had a better hand writing and command of language than Wilhelm at fourteen. He also listened to some fiddler entertaining the soldiers in the barracks with rapt attention. When Friedrich, wondering whether he might be dealing with another music loving soul, asked whether Heinrich had considered learning how to play the flute, the boy looked him up and down and said politely: "No, thank you. The violin is a far superior instrument, I think."

Heinrich was a brat.

"That child has a terrible character", Friedrich said to the Saxon envoy Mantteufel whom he hoped would continue to advance huge sums of money to him, which was what Friedrich encouraged all foreign envoys to these days.. To him, and not to his brothers, once they got to the age where foreign dignitaries considered them worth bribing.

"Really? And here I thought he reminded me of your royal highness," Mantteufel retorted, tongue-in-cheek. and yet undoubtedly not even considering to lie, for a change.

* * *

Heinrich at fourteen, when their father died, and Friedrich became King, turned out to be even more of a brat. Instead of being grateful that Friedrich used some of his very limited time to create exactly the kind of demanding teaching schedule that had been missing in his younger brothers' lives, complete with teachers who did actually know what they were doing, he threw a tantrum about not having any time left.  
"Believe me, there is nothing you could possibly do with your time that would be an improvement to learning", Friedrich said.

"Oh, I believe in learning, brother", the brat returned, sounding suspiciously familiar and all the more unbearable. "Of the right lessons."

Something awoke in Friedrich right then. "Sire," he said. "You will address me as Sire. I am speaking as your King now, and you will learn whatever I tell you to learn. You'll thank me one day, but that is actually immaterial. You will do it because I wish it."

He has used his new authority a couple of times already, and it was always very satisfying to do so, especially towards people who had believed they would easily control and manipulate him, or people who remembered the humiliated Crown Prince of yesteryear literally kissing his father's feet. But it had never felt this good, this right, as staring into the face of someone who might as well be a ghost, knowing exactly what that ghost felt, and now, finally, also knowing what the King felt. The untouchable, supremely ruling King, who would never be at anyone's mercy ever again.

"Yes, Sire", Heinrich said, and glared. But he said it. And he did learn his lessons very well. The scholarly ones, at any rate.

"He might very well be the most intelligent of your siblings", Bielfeld said, one of his friends whom he had appointed to tutor Heinrich and Ferdinand both, when Heinrich was sixteen and they were just between the first two of Friedrich's wars. "You should consider sending him to an university. Maybe the Sorbonne, even. I know none of your family has been been, but he's only a third son, so wouldn't he be ideal? It's not like he's actually needed in Potsdam."

The Sorbonne. Paris. Going to Paris, free, free, free, no more uniform, no more pressure to fit into the distorted frame his father had dreamt up for him, nothing but knowledge, French salons, French wit: Friedrich had dreamt of this, just this, for such a long time, until those dreams were drowned in Katte's blood, running into the Küstrin sand.

"No", he said. "Heinrich is a Prince of Prussia. He has a duty to serve. Time for him to do more than observe drills. I will take him with me in the next campaign."

This renewed war in Silesia wasn't quite like the first; the Austrians had figured out a new tactic, for starters. One of their generals, Taun, managed to avoid giving battle and still bested Friedrich by choosing brilliant positions, cutting off his supply lines, forcing marches on him which never ended with a confrontation at arms, just with more marches, until Friedrich was forced to retreat from Bohemia , never once having had the chance to offer the kind of surprise attack that had won him fame in his first campaign. It was most frustrating.

"What do you make of the war?" Friedrich asked Heinrich when he'd sent his officers away after having laid out a plan that would, finally, force a battle, even if it wasn't with Taun.

"I'm learning a lot", Heinrich says. "Sire. From Field Marshal Taun, especially."

It was an odd sensation, this: the struggle between wanting to laugh and wanting to slap him. In the end, Friedrich did neither. Instead, he decided to surprise the brat.

"So do I," he said. "It's only a fool who doesn't take the chance to learn from an enemy with truly excellent skills, Henri."

The stunned look on Heinrich's face was actually worth that little admission, which happened to be the truth. When Friedrich finally did get his battle, he lost sight of his younger brother, though the aides he'd ordered to keep an eye on him did not, and they reported Heinrich had handled himself well, though with a lamentable tendency to believe himself immortal. It was then that Friedrich discovered the idea that this younger brother might die in battle had not, in fact, occurred to him, and now that it did, it felt most disconcerting. He did not want him to.

He imagined the two of them reaching an understanding, now that Heinrich, surely, had to outgrow his brattishness. But when he tried to strike up a conversation with Heinrich on non-military matters, he found himself politely but unmistakably rebuffed.

"We could write to Wilhelm together, if you like", Friedrich offered, still in the glow of victory.

"No, thank you, Sire. I've already written my letter to him. The one I'm writing right now to is to a friend of mine. You do not know her", Heinrich added hastily, as if to prevent any further offers of shared correspondence.

"I see. Well, do kindly inform me if the royal purse needs to finance a bastard", Friedrich said, piqued. Heinrich looked disgusted and suddenly even younger than 16.

"The Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst," he said indignantly, "is the friend of my soul. I am not interested in wooing her."

Friedrich laughed. "Of course you aren't."

* * *

But in truth Heinrich wasn't, it quickly became apparent now that Friedrich had started to pay closer attention, wooing women of any type, including the Zerbst girl, daughter of one of Friedrich's generals, with an ambitious mother who had set her sights higher than at the younger son of the House of Brandenburg. During one of the Carnival balls in Berlin, Friedrich watched Heinrich and the girl dancing and laughing together, and there wasn't a smidgeon of desire to be felt. They might as well have been brother and sister. No, but Heinrich's glances keep following the most handsome of the victorious soldiers displaying themselves at the balls, and Friedrich feels that odd ache again, observing Heinrich, tiny Heinrich with his homely face blush when the likes of dashing General Knyphausen congratulated him on having fought bravely in the war.

When Heinrich was nineteen and still, going by available evidence, virginal, Friedrich decided to take pity on him. Sending a page his way turned out to have results far beyond Heinrich's first romance. When the dust had cleared, Friedrich couldn't be sure he had won this latest fight, which was not an uncertainty he could live with, all the more so since Heinrich, ungrateful as ever, decided to stop talking to him entirely. This took some effort, considering he was still obliged to live in the same palace with Friedrich, but after he managed to hold to his silence for several months, Friedrich concluded he was, in fact, enraged rather than disappointed.

Heinrich asked him for permission to travel, trying to disguise the Grand Tour as some kind of military research in foreign armies and fortresses. It was pathetic, really. Denying the request was no more than he deserved. If he'd apologized for the silence, Friedrich might have found it in him to reconsider, but instead, Heinrich figured out a way to be a brat in an entirely new fashion. When he was supposed to be drilling with his regiment in Spandau, he made unpermitted nightly visits in Berlin, something the greatest chatterbox at court, Pöllnitz, was only too happy to inform Friedrich about. Clearly, harsher measures were called for.

"Dear brother," Wilhelm said unhappily, "I don't think putting Heinrich in arrest is going to have the results you hope for. Yes, he should not have left Spandau, but he is young and..."

"Everyone is young", Friedrich retorted cuttingly. "Including the soldiers he's supposed to command. How are they going to respect him if he can't even follow the simplest of rules? One night or two locked up won't kill him."

Try months of this, he did not add. His brothers and their unthinking ignorance in how terrible life truly could be were infuriating.

What Heinrich mostly learned from his few days and nights under arrest was not to get caught anymore. But he continued to neglect his regiment. When Friedrich decided on a surprise inspection, he discovered that several of the soldiers were under the minimum height, and were clearly peasants standing in for the officers who were absenting themselves in order to go to Berlin, just as Heinrich had done earlier. Having been right didn't lessen his ire. He took the regiment from Heinrich and gave it to a new commander, only to find Wilhelm still willfully blind about Heinrich and petitioning him again. How Wilhelm, who was the older and Crown Prince of Prussia to boot, had managed to allow himself led by the nose by their younger brother was beyond Friedrich.

"If you gave him the chance to explain, Sire, to properly explain, then maybe..."

"There is no excuse for sloppiness. But I can see that you are determined to take Heinrich's part, no matter the facts. Any further conversation on this subject is therefore pointless."

For the first time in any conversation between them, Wilhelm looked truly hurt.

"It saddens me that you have such a bad opinion of your brothers, Sire," he murmured, bowed and left. There was a strange hollowness in Friedrich's throat. True, Wilhelm and Heinrich, who were only four years apart, had been raised together, but one could still expect Wilhelm to see reason. And besides, what had Heinrich ever done to deserve this kind of unconditional loyalty? What great deeds had he accomplished, what great sufferings had he lived through? Heinrich, who thought tyranny meant having to spent a day and night under arrest, that loss meant being disappointed by his first crush looking out for greater chances. Heinrich, who now felt free to fall into bed with whoever he felt attracted to, because he had never, ever, to fear a father who'd have considered loving other men deserving of hellfire. Heinrich, who didn't have a kingdom to run that demanded every hour of every day, who was, when all was said and done, still free, and didn't even know it.

* * *

"What am I to do with my brother?"

"I thought I had given my reply", Fredersdorf said. It was past midnight, and Friedrich still couldn't sleep, so he'd ordered another round of coffee, deciding to ignore that Fredersdorf had chosen to change the order to hot chocolate, because as it turned out, hot chocolate was just what he needed. He treasured the sweetness and felt moderately revived.

"You could try talking to him", Fredersdorf said at last, when Friedrich kept insisting. He said it in German, because Fredersdorf, who had changed himself from a simple soldier to a man who helped Friedrich to run his kingdom, still refused to learn French. And somehow, from him those syllables didn't sound ugly, didn't carry the echoes of Friedrich's father with them.

"Now that he deigns to talk to me again? I'll give it five minutes, and then the brat will have managed to make me want to strangle him again. You're not encouraging fratricide, are you, Fredersdorf?"

Fredersdorf gave him a look, and poured some more steaming chocolate. He also gently nudged Biche away, who'd put her head between cup and pot. Friedrich was tempted, but he knew from experience he'd regret allowing his favourite greyhound to drink chocolate. It really wasn't good for her.

"When you told me to hire both Salimbeni and Porporino," Fredersdorf said while doing this, referring to the great castrato singers he'd managed to acquire for the Berlin Opera, "I thought it couldn't be done. Not both at the same season. Honestly, I thought they might kill each other. But you knew better, and you were right. Simply by allowing each to show their strength at different times, we managed to benefit from both, and your wish was fulfilled."

Friedrich blinked. "You did not just compare Monsignor Henri and myself to two theatrical stage strutters, did you?"

"I would never do that, Sire", Fredersdorf said, and sat down at Friedrich's side, where he belonged.

* * *

Having ordered Heinrich to him, Friedrich began the conversation with the best of intentions. He would give Heinrich the chance to apologize, to be appropriately humble and repentant. He would then forgive him and tell him the good news, that he had permission to leave, to take his residence elsewhere, to even go on the Grand Tour. Heinrich was many things, but not stupid. He’d know this was his one chance. He’d be grateful, finally. It would make quite a change, Friedrich thought; Henri the brat truly grateful and affectionate. Something to look forward to.

He tried not to think about the one previous moment between them where Heinrich had shown – what had it been? Understanding, perhaps, an apology, likely, and in any case, a readiness to do the completely unexpected in a fashion that for once had nothing infuriating in it. But no, that had most likely just been spillover in the chaos of the affair around the page Marwitz. Whereas today would be the opposite of chaos. Everything would go according to plan.

He noted with approval that Heinrich’s uniform looked immaculate as he entered. No more sloppiness, then. Really, he’d been doing Heinrich a favor by insisting on putting him in the army. Heinrich was too short for the plushy Parisian fashions to look good on him, not to mention that no amount of powder could hide the scars the smallpox he’d recently survived had left him with. Whereas the tight blue uniform showed that there was nothing wrong with his proportions at least, and brought out the color of his eyes.

“I hear there is something you have to tell me”, Friedrich said, feeling generous enough to feed Heinrich his cue for the declaration of remorse. He took care not to sound hostile or contemptuous, to signal that the apology would be well received. It was a lovely summer day, and he opened the door to the terrace, spontaneously deciding that the conversation should take place during a stroll through the gardens. Now that the palace of his dreams had actually become reality, he was proud of the fact his gardens bore fruit. They were for more than show, always.

Heinrich walked with him, and their steps quickly adjusted. It was remarkable how easy perfect unison could be achieved that way. What Heinrich actually said, though, did rather the opposite. “Since you find it impossible to treat me as your brother, Sire, I would like to suggest a negotiation between opponents. Hopefully with a treaty that satisfies both parties as the result.”

So much for Friedrich’s good intentions. He felt – was that disappointment? What had he expected, that the brat would truly become a brother, based on what, some superficial similarities between them? He took his refuge in sarcasm.

“So you fancy yourself my opponent?” Friedrich asked witheringly. “I’m sorry to disillusion you, little brother, but you are, at best, a nuisance. Be that as it may. I do agree the status quo can not continue. You are not an idiot. You must know that drilling, boring as it may be, is also quintessential for our army to maintain the shape that has enabled its victories. And I do have the right to expect anyone commanding one of my regiments to do their best to serve this aim. This is not caprice on my part. It is simple reason.”

“Yes”, Heinrich said, without qualifications or indignant justifications. Well. Maybe there were some signs of maturity there along with the ungrateful arrogance.

“And as you cannot perform this simple task…”

“But I can”, Heinrich said. “I will. If you reinstate me as head of the regiment.”

Evidently, Heinrich believed in oblique tactics as well. Despite himself, a part of Friedrich began to enjoy this.

“I’m sorry. I thought you are finding military service in peace time a dreadful bore, at least as far as service in this kingdom was concerned, and were yearning to study it elsewhere?”

Heinrich made a dismissive hand movement, without his steps, which were still in perfect lock with Friedrich’s, faltering for one moment. “That was the past. Let us focus on the future, Sire.”

“Indulge me. A little more past, if you please. You admit that you were sloppy, that you willfully neglected the task I gave you?”

“I admit I was at less than my best”, Heinrich said stubbornly. “And that you are right about the state deserving the best. Which I will be.”

It was, Friedrich thought, like fencing with your shadow. As far as non-apologies were concerned, this was a good one. The problem was, though, that he did want an apology.  
“And I should believe you because….”

“Because if you don’t reinstate me, you’re not just wasting resources, which you are far too thrifty to do. You admit that you are afraid.”

Friedrich came to a halt. “Afraid of what?”

“That I could surpass you if you don’t keep me away from anything that would allow me to prove myself”, Heinrich said softly. “Sire.”

His young face was set in an eerily familiar tenseness, his back rigid, the hands not clenched into fists, no, but pressed against his legs as if to prevent them from making any traitorous movement. What he’d just said was ridiculous, of course.

“My brother Narcissus,” Friedrich said, and started to circle around him while Heinrich remained still, “so entranced with the image he sees of himself. While the rest of us can but marvel and ask ourselves on what, precisely, this high opinion you have of yourself is based. You survived a few skirmishes. Congratulations. So do a lot of soldiers. And you did reasonably well with your studies, when you finally bothered to put some effort into them. My God, no one has ever been able to accomplish this! I am struck with awe. On the other hand, we have your stunning talent to involve yourself in expensive romances, for which you need my money, since you don’t have any of your own, and no one would look at you twice if you weren’t dangling a purse and some privileges. No one…”

 _No one cares if you live or die, you French fop_ , his father’s voice whispered in him, and abruptly, he stopped. _Nothing, you’re nothing. Haven’t I done everything for you, and how have you repaid me?_

There was a difference, though. So far Heinrich had led a life which Friedrich would have envied, twenty years ago. Friedrich wasn’t his father. Hadn’t he actually been willing to let Heinrich go, as his father never would have been? Though that would have been a mistake, and not just because of the lack of an apology. If Heinrich actually believed himself an equal, he should never be left outside of Prussia. Not because it was true. Because princes who thought they could do anything were born conspirators, especially with foreign powers.

“I think they would, rather”, Heinrich said, icily, and that was all him, and so utterly unlike what Friedrich would have said that he was brought up short in his circling. “Because, you see, some of them had the chance to go directly to the source of all money and privilege. And for some reason, they still seem to prefer my company.”

For the first time, Friedrich had to force his laughter, instead of giving in to it naturally.

“If you’re still thinking about that gonorrhoe-ridden page…”

“No, my brother,” Heinrich retorted, abandoning the “Sire” for the first time in ages, and starting to circle just as Friedrich had done, earlier. The impudence. The challenge. It was infuriating and invigorating at the same time. No, Friedrich thought, I will never allow you to leave. Whatever happens, you have asked for it. “I was thinking of your charming Italian Chamberlain, Count Algarotti. You may not have noticed that we’ve been spending some time together. Since the Swan of Padua these days does his best not to come to Potsdam if he can avoid it. I assure you, he has no trouble coming… to other places.”

As far as surprise attacks were concerned, this one couldn’t be faulted. So Heinrich had learned something after all, Friedrich told himself. It wasn’t true, naturally. Algarotti, who was one of the few people Friedrich had been truly entranced by when first encountering him a decade ago from now, and remained drawn to despite Algarotti absenting himself rather often, and once to work for Prussia’s rival Saxony, even. Well, Algarotti liked to be liked, and he had trouble to say no to people, so it was, theoretically, possible, that he’d taken pity on little Heinrich at some point. But no more than that. Why should he wish to consort with a second rate copy when he knew the original? Meanwhile, Heinrich, never knowing when to shut up, continued.

“I may not have your money, _brother_ , or your privileges, and I assuredly do not have your rank, nor would I wish to. But there is a time when people want more than words and jokes and poetry.”

Friedrich was reasonably sure none of his younger siblings had ever gotten their hands on a copy of the poem he’d written for Algarotti, describing him in the thralls of orgasm. He’d shown it to a few other friends, granted, but each of them knew better than to share it without royal permission, and certainly not with Heinrich. So Algarotti himself must have done. As for that boast of potency – well. There was one way, one particular way, to answer this. One way Heinrich would never, ever forget, nor ever able to shake off. One way that would, finally, make him submit, and Friedrich discovered that by now he didn’t just want this submission from Heinrich, he needed it.

He reached out and caught Heinrich’s left wrist. “Indeed they do,” Friedrich said. “Such times are usually referred to as weddings. And I have just realized that yours is overdue.”

There. There it was, that stunned look, revealing something vulnerable and raw beneath the youthful bravado. The pulse beneath Friedrich’s fingers went faster.

“My wedding”, Heinrich repeated, slowly.

“Marriage, nuptials, Hochzeit, yes, that is exactly what I am talking about. You want your regiment back, and permission to reside in your own household?” Friedrich asked, not letting him go. “A heightened budget for your expenses? This is my condition, little brother. Take it or leave it. This negotiation is at an end.”

It wasn’t that he hated the Queen. She was a harmless creature, none too bright, but harmless, and devoted to him, something which not even nearly a decade of living apart hadn’t been able to cure her of. But to this day, Friedrich hated the fact that his father had been able to force this wedding on him. It had been the last, crowning act of his utter submission to the King, and he resented it even more than the public kissing of his late father’s feet. The humiliation of that moment had passed. Dead and gone, like his father Friedrich Wilhelm. But the marriage still existed. It always would. That utter violation of the one area in his life which should have been his.

It was perfect for Heinrich.

“I might even throw in Rheinsberg for good measure. As my wedding gift to you”, he added generously, referring to the country palace where, for just a few years, he’d actually had experienced the closest thing to happiness he’d ever known, something that had come to an end with his coronation.

“You already gave me Rheinsberg”, Heinrich said tonelessly.

“But not the permission to live there”, Friedrich replied, and put his other hand on Heinrich’s shoulder. It was true, he’d both given the gift and denied the permission, not least because he thought Heinrich still needed supervision. He’d need it less once he’d submitted. “I will give it to you now. If you marry.”

Heinrich just looked at him. There was still that raw vulnerability in his gaze. Suddenly, Friedrich wondered what he would do if Heinrich now begged. Would say: don’t do this to me. I am not the Crown Prince. I am not needed for the succession. You know what it is like, you know it better than anyone else. Don’t do this to me. Please.

The silence between them was full of unspoken things, beating as fast as that pulse just under Friedrich’s fingertips.

“I will”, Heinrich said, hoarsely.

Strange, that sense of heat that had nothing to do with the sweltering summer outside, creeping up your spine, all the way through your heart. Friedrich let him go.

“The regiment is yours again as of tomorrow,” he remarked. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, as if he’d bitten his tongue, hard enough to draw blood, which was absurd. Heinrich nodded, made an insultingly stiff bow, and withdrew without waiting for Friedrich to give him permission to do so. This once, Friedrich decided to let it pass.

“You didn’t ask me whom you should marry”, he said instead against Heinrich’s back. His brother halted, but did not turn around. In truth, Friedrich had no idea regarding the prospective bride. The Zerbst girl wasn’t available anymore; she’d been married off to the Czarina’s nephew, where she’d hopefully make herself useful and further Prussia’s interests in Russia for the next generation.

“Because it doesn’t matter”, Heinrich replied, and the bitterness in his voice was mingled with an odd sense of anticipation. “She’s not the one you want me bound to till death do us part, after all. But you know what they say about vows, Sire. They bind in both directions.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Historical footnote:** Heinrich's teenage friend the Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst is, of course, the later Catherine II of Russia; Heinrich and Catherine had met and befriended each other as children and would renew their friendship much later when Heinrich travelled to Russia in 1770. 
> 
> Friedrich wrote on August 5th, 1749 to August Wilhelm, announcing Heinrich's agreement to marry and the end of the fraternal argument: _I have news this time which I think will be pleasant to you. Peace has been concluded and ratified between Henri and me._. For more historical background on the relationship between the three brothers at this time, see [here](https://rheinsberg.dreamwidth.org/10642.html#cutid1).


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